How To Choose a Paint Color for Your Dining Room
Red meats, blood oranges, yellow bell peppers, collard greens, blueberries, sweet plums, white wines, and hot cocoa—if there is one thing that is associated with food, it’s color. So, of all the rooms in the house, the dining room is simply asking for a coat of bright, colorful paint.
But considering there are as many colors as there are flavors, knowing how to choose a paint color for your dining room can sour a sweet experience. Fortunately, our tips will help you paint a room as appetizing as your dinner.
Consider the Rest of the Room
If you have ever plated a meal, you know that different foods look more or less appetizing when placed next to other foods. It’s the same thing with color. Colors can look drastically different when placed next to other colors. So, when choosing a paint color, keep in mind all the other colors that exist in the room. For example:
- The type of flooring (Wood floor vs. tile)
- The Trim (Natural wood vs. painted white)
- Other furniture
- Artwork
- Light Fixtures
- Wall hangings
It’s much easier to match the paint to the things in the room than it is to match the room to the paint, so avoid making your paint color the first decor choice in a room.
Consider the Lighting
Paint color reflects light, so the amount of natural light in the space will greatly impact the way color appears—specifically the temperature of the light. Temperature here refers to if a light has warmer or cooler undertones. The temperature of the light will maximize the undertones in different types of paint. Warmer temperature rooms will highlight the warmth in the room, and vice versa.
Your first instinct may be to paint warmer rooms with warmer undertones and cooler rooms with cooler undertones. But too bright colors in warm rooms can become too much, and cooler undertones can look washed out or dreary. It’s often best to choose colors with the opposite undertone for rooms with more abundant light.
Consider the Rest of the House
Your dining room doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s part of the more complex style entity known as your entire house. If the rest of your house is cool greens, blues, and light, airy neutrals, it would be a little jarring to suddenly walk into a vibrant orange dining room.
In interior design, this idea is known as cohesion, or the idea of an entire home being one unified unit in its stylistic choices. This is especially important if you have an open floor plan and your dining room is in the direct sightline of the rest of the home. This doesn’t mean every area is identical, but that it has recurring themes such as textiles, motifs, and colors.
Consider the Colors
Once you have a good grasp of the colors surrounding your dining room, you will be poised to choose the perfect paint color for your dining room. While there is no definitive right or wrong answer as far as color choice goes, different colors have their own benefits or downfalls in this setting.
Neutrals
Pros
Neutrals colors, such as beige, grey, white, or black are no-fail choices in any room in the house, and the dining room is no exception. Neutrals typically pair nicely with almost any color you might have in your dining room, and light-colored neutrals will often make your space feel brighter and more open. Neutrals are also the preferred color for staging one’s home, making them ideal if you plan on moving out in the near future.
Cons
Neutrals get the most flack for being dull or predictable, as they are common in almost every house. They also tend to show imperfections more clearly than other colors. The best ways to avoid these issues is to opt for neutrals with warmer undertones or to choose more dramatic neutrals like black or dark grey. Choosing a higher-gloss paint like semi-gloss will also help mask imperfections in the walls, even with light-colored paint.
Warms
Pros
The warm side of the color wheel offers a variety of looks from passionate reds to lively oranges to cheerful yellows. Warm colors tend to make large, more imposing spaces feel cozy and more intimate. And in color psychology, red and yellow are especially known to invoke hunger in those who look at the colors. Together, they make the perfect set of emotions for gathering around the dinner table.
Cons
While making a space appear cozier may be good for a large dining room, it may lead to a space feeling claustrophobic or busy in a small dining room. Depending on your preference, the colors may feel too energetic for the dinner hour when you’re trying to wind down after a long day. If this is a concern, opt for a lighter or more muted shade of your preferred color.
Cools
Pros
Cool colors like green, blue, and purple are known to recede visually, especially if you use lighter or more airy shades like sky blue or tea green. If you have a smaller dining room, this can lead to a dining room that feels more open. They are more associated with calm or grounded emotions, creating a tranquil space to sit and enjoy a meal with your family or friends.
Cons
As the name suggests, cool colors can also make the room come off as cold or dreary, especially when there is limited natural light in the room. And tranquility and quiet aren’t everyone’s first choice of emotions to put in a dining room. The easiest way to counteract this issue is to create as much light as possible in the space through airy window treatments or by choosing bulbs with clean, white light. You can also opt for cool colors with warm undertones to strike a balance between the two.
Ready to create a dining room design you can sink your teeth into? Our non-toxic* interior paints offer the full gamut of delectable color choices.
*Non-toxic - Conforms to ASTM-D4236, specifically concerning oral toxicity, skin irritation and respiratory effects.